Dr Peter White's Blog

About Me

I am retired from the Uni. of Queensland, and have numerous interests inside and outside of the uni. I play classical, bluegrass, country and folk guitar (hows that for a mix?) I am a member of the Australian Labor Party and am currently branch secretary of the Mt Coot-tha branch. I'm also involved in developing virtual reality builds and websites. Never bored!

Monday, January 28, 2008

Too many of us?

Last Saturday was Australia Day, the Oz version of the American 4th of July without the revolution. Lots of gongs handed out and gladhanding amongst dignitaries. The rest of us enjoyed a quiet day and many watched fireworks.

It also gave me a chance to review some of my past entries in this blog, and one that caught my eye was one where I wrote somewhat pessimistically about the future of our Human race. I want to revisit that one again. Another reason why was prompted by a talk I heard last night from a medical doctor who has become a specialist in climate change. Her rather pithy talk simply stated that unless we as humans change the way we do things, and wean ourselves off the addiction to petroleum products, we are -- not to put too fine a point on it -- stuffed.

In my earlier years I was a sort of optimist; of course we can change things globally. All it takes is [fill in whatever you think will do the job]. In my later years my optimism has slipped somewhat and now I am more of a realist. Some might say a cynic; others a pessimist. Whatever. We will not change fast enough.

This will bring about collapse of many developing countries because it is their populations who always suffer hardest when the more affluent among us begin to watch our civilised superstructures collapse. Then we're next.

The only way we can keep the planet from killing us or driving us nearly to extinction -- or beyond -- is to limit our population and our use of natural resources. Full stop, end of story. Everything else is window dressing.

Face it kids; the four horsemen are revving up their Harleys and are ready to begin their sweep.

And to finish off with a verse from Tom Lehrer: "What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man".